Rensselaer Republican, Volume 16, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 July 1884 — The Ill-Doings of Flies. [ARTICLE]

The Ill-Doings of Flies.

Dr. B. Grassi, of Rovellasca, reports, in a recent number of the Gazette de gli Ospitali, some investigations he has been making on the above subject. He has convinced himself that the common house fly is a dreadful enemy of the human race, as f)f all Hiring things in general. Wherever any infection is present, for instance the sputa of phthisical patients or dejecta from the intestinal tract, swarms of flies are to be seen, which soil themselves with the offensive material, and then crawl about over our food. The writer placed a plate containing a large mass of the ova of a human parasite (Trichocephalus) upon a table in his laboratory, which was situated at a distance of about thirty feet from the kitchen.— Sheets of white paper were placed in various parts of the kitchen, and in the course of a few hours the dejecta of flies were observable on the paper. Upon examination of these with the microscope, they were found to contain some of the ova of the parasite. Dr. Grassi then killed some of the flies and found an enormous mass feces containing more of the ova of the ova. On another occasion he minced some segments of tape-worm that had been preserved in spirit, and put them into water, so that the mass of ova were suspended in it. In half hour he succeeded in finding the ova of the parasite in the abdominal contents of the flies, and also in the spontaneously deposited dejecta. In like manner it could be proved that flies .that had alighted on irqldy cream harbored the spores of oidium. lactis. It is useless to comfort one’s self with the thought that these germs die in the intestines of the flies. Even if 'the intestinal juice does not act upon them, and it is not proven that it does in the case of bacteria, some would almost certainly escape destruction. In any case, moreover, the legs and proboscis would still serve as carriers to the infection. He proposes that an attempt shall be made to introduce the same diseases among them in the spring-time that already causes such devastation in the autumn. — Health and Home.